We live in Hampton Roads, VA (aka Norfolk). Even though our family is not military a large percentage of our friends, neighbors, ect are. My 9 yr add daughter came home from school today very upset, she is a natural born worrier. A LARGE number of the children in her class have at least one parent overseas. She is specifically worried about one of her closest friends, whose father is in the Kuwait desert. She asked if her friends father is going to die. We are “locals”, so having friends with parents deployed is routine, so I was a little shocked. We have talked in depth about the war, saying our prayers for our friends, and yes death is always a possibility in war.
Being ADD it doesn’t take much to distract her, even with meds. I am worried due to the fact, the school system is still intending to continue with testing in the near future. It seems they should be giving these kids some slack, considering the stress they are under. I’m sure our district test scores will be reflecting the current situation.
How is this affecting your children? What are you doing to minimize the effects? We don’t expose our kids to much news programming, we don’t need to, they get it at school, probably have as many details as CNN.
Re: The war = STRESS at school
It is really tough for our kids, even when you try to keep the exposure to a minimum they still hear a lot from kids at school. My own husband is in Kuwait, we are stationed in Germany. My younger son came home from school yesterday almost in tears because he is afraid a bomb will hit where my husband is. Unfortunately I can’t really tell him that won’t happen, I did tell him that his dad is not going to leave Kuwait and that there is a lot of security surrounding his dad. Also explained that dad said not to worry. We get frequent emails and have gotten calls a few times in the last month. Both son’s have their own email accounts so they can email dad. (I have complete access to them)
My kids are in a DOD school, they are very well equipped for dealing with the kids. Many teachers were military kids themselves or are military spouses.
The schools there in Hampton roads should be doing some things for the military kids, I agree the stress will probably show in test scores. I would bring up that this is stressful also for the non military kids. Ask the school what kind of programs they have set up for all this. The other thing though is to keep routines, even the school’s routines. If the kids have known for a while that testing will be done, then they know that is part of school. My kids just finished taking the Terra Nova test on Tues. so we’ll see how those results come out.
Best wishes.
Amy
Re: The war = STRESS at school
I’ve tried and tried to pry info. out of my kids as to how their school is handling it. I don;t think my 2nd grader’s teacher covered it off. I believe my 4th grader’s teacher has briefly talked about it with the class - knowing this teacher it was appropriately handled (kinda ‘need to know’ basis and don’t offer more info. than they can or should absorb). Other than that, the school has sent home literature on how to talk to your kids about it and a seperate overview of safety procedures like lockdowns, etc. - virtually any catastrophe you can “plan” for. We’ve made sure that at home it is talked about with reassurances and their security in mind.
What I really worry about is the conversations on the playground and the bus. My older volunteered on day 2 of war action that one of the kids on the bus was saying how the schools are the next war target - confusing the terrorism here with war action over there. So, we talked that one through. DD chalked the other child’s comments as silly b/c the kid was in one of the younger grades, but you have to wonder how many kids took her comments to heart and didn’t mention it to their parents.
As for us parents, well we’re in NY. 9/11 affected us deeply on so many levels and yet we were lucky by comparison to so many. We’ve been on alert since 9/11, but the heightened alert from the war action is conjuring up all that horrific anxiety again.
One story about how 9/11 affected us and the kids - my husband worked at 7 WTC - gone poof on 9/11. His company lost 500 positions that day - not to be relocated. So for the next several months to retain gainful employment, he went wherever his company needed him, spending lots of time in Wash. DC, from one terrrorist target to another. One night he is walking out of work in DC talking to the kids on his now must-carry cell phone. He goes in an underpass and loses the cell signal but immediately calls back. My dd, then newly 8 asks him “What happened Daddy? Did your ‘work’ blow up again?”. As I hear this, I’m just freaking - she said it so cavalierly. They process a lot more than we adults think they do.
We all should be talking to our kids at home about this so they don’t lose that God-given childhood right to security.
I posted some good web resources on the Parenting LD BBoard. I especially like the “Helping America Cope” booklet available at www.7-dippity.com Lots of good activities for parents and children to do together re: stress, fears, and worries. Talk to the school counselor— s/he might not be as aware of the effects on kids who’s parents are not military. Are they doing groups for students with deployed parents? Might your child be included in a small group as well?